The following table describes the status, the proposer and other metadata of this motion.
| Consultation: | Edinburgh Greens AGM 2026 |
|---|---|
| Proposer: | Mariusz Cebulski |
| Status: | Published |
| Submitted: | 06/15/2026, 23:31 |
Edinburgh Branch to bring "Reforming National Executive" motion to conference
Motion text
Constitutional motion: Reforming National Executive
Preamble
There is compelling evidence that the National Executive needs reform.
The party went to the crucial 2026 election with more than a hundred thousand
pounds less than planned in our strategic plan and had to resort to a 150
thousand pound loan from the Green Party of England and Wales .
Autumn conference left the party with an almost 25 thousand pound overspend
showing lack of proper oversight of party staff.
The cultural review which has been agreed years ago only now is treated with
some urgency.
Finally the fact that in the seven years Executive existed, the position of co-
char, which is one of the most important posts in the party, for years was left
empty or was suddenly vacated by members frustrated with the way it works.
There are many reasons for this.
Most information is kept secret from both committee and ordinary members. Staff
key performance metrics, staff responsibilities, finance information, invoices,
contracts are only available to co-chairs, preventing committee members from
making informed decisions and providing effective oversight.
Co-chars being the only ones with sensitive information and responsible for
managing staff and other committees, are overloaded with tasks and at high risk
of burn-out, especially since the posts are unpaid.
We need to reform the National Executive to make it more democratic and
efficient, spread the workload while focusing more on good governance.
Motion
Replace point 3.4.3.2 of Constitution with:
“SGP Executive shall be responsible for procuring legal services as required.
Access to legal advice by other office bearers, members and staff shall be at
the discretion of the Executive, subject to the Executive's obligation to
protect legal privilege of advice to the greatest extent possible and with the
exception of the legally required officers, who shall have the automatic right
to access legal advice unless they have a relevant conflict of interest.”
Replace point 3.4.3.3 of Constitution with:
“SGP Executive shall present written reports to each Council meeting and shall
send a representative to Council meeting to answer questions on the report.
Reports by the SGP Executive, must be delivered to the Co-Convenors of SGP
Council no later than ten days before each Council meeting, and made available
to members at least one week before Council meetings.”
Replace point 3.4.7 of Constitution with:
“SGP Executive will consist of:
a. Eight elected members of National Executive none of whom can be an elected
Member of Parliament or Councillors;
b. The Co-Leaders of the SGP;
c. The Co-Convenors of SGP Council;
d. The Treasurer of the SGP;
e. One delegate from each active SGP Representative Group;
f. One delegate from the SGP Parliamentary Group;
g. One delegate from the SGP Association of Green Councilors;
h. One delegate from the SGP Trade Union Group;
i. One delegate from each other SGP National Committee established by a General
Meeting or SGP Council, possessing no voting rights;
j. The senior member of SGP Staff, possessing no voting rights;
k. Additional members as defined by the Standing Orders for SGP Executive,
possessing no voting rights.
l. The Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Officer of the SGP.”
Remove point 3.4.8.1 of Constitution.
Amend point 4.3.3 of Constitution.
4.3.3 There will be eight members of SGP Executive, elected for two-year terms,
responsible for:
a. Ensuring the membership responsibilities of the SGP Executive as defined in
the Constitution and Standing Orders are carried out;
b. Ensuring the general operation of the SGP;
c. Ensuring the effective working of SGP Executive;
d. Ensuring the effective line management of SGP Staff;
Amend point 4.3.3.1 of Constitution.
4.3.3.1 The members of SGP Executive may serve for no more than three
consecutive terms.
Supporters
- Susan Rae
Amendments
none
Comments
Zoe Clelland:
- It is unfortunate that the proposer did not consult Exec co-chairs or their fellow Exec members before submission. This is accepted good practice for any paper or motion about another role or party body. This might have allowed us to build some consensus on the challenges Exec faces and the best solutions.
- It is incorrect to say that autumn conference left us with a £25k overspend. Conferences in 2025 were budgeted to cost the Party £17k but overspent with a net cost of £22.7k. This is an overspend of £5.7k, which is not good but is not on the scale stated.
- It is incorrect to say that information is kept secret from Exec members. Other than confidential HR information and any confidential legal matters, information is shared at Exec meetings and through the Ops report every month. However, we acknowledge the need to do this in a more iterative way and are working on how to improve this.
- There are already 11 elected members of Executive (not counting Council Co-chairs or Co-leaders who are also elected). This includes 2 co-chairs of Exec, 1 clerk, 1 treasurer and 7 National Committee Co-convenors who are elected with sitting on Executive as part of their role.
- Executive as a body already has a lot of shared responsibility and we acknowledge the need to do more to have this recognised so that all office bearers sitting on Executive play a part in sharing the workload that we collectively own (as set out in our workplan). It is clear that this is not currently happening to the degree we need it to and will be a focus for our new office bearers in August
- challenges with filling the current number of volunteer roles is well recognised - it is unclear how increasing the number would help
- filling the role of clerk and having active national committees with capacity to taking on strategically agreed work within the Exec workplan are two things that would help the Executive to function well
- the motion does not suggest how Executive governance or accountability would work with 8 elected roles replacing a co-chair model.
Mariusz Cebulski:
thank you for your feedback, I'd need to challenge a few of your points mentioned.
The proposer did reach out to a number of Edinburgh members and executive members for feedback. While there wasn't consensus on this motion, most if not all members highlighted a dissatisfaction with the way Executive is working. Since the motion would go through the conference motion process, that would be the best place to find consensus.
Per this paper: https://members.greens.scot/file/21-ear-conference-review-and-planningdocxpdf Autumn conference has provided a loss of 24,383.74, so I accept the number to be amended to ca. 24 thousand. Per the 2025 budget (https://members.greens.scot/file/draft-2025-budget-v12xlsx) conferences were to bring in a profit of 6k and not a loss of 22k.
It is correct to say that information is kept secret to executive members as a request to share staff goals and key performance metrics for 2026 were deemed 'private information' and the requests to access detailed party financial information was ignored (including a help desk ticket) for almost two years.
The core of the motion is to spread information and responsibility to a wider number of members, while giving space for committee chair to focus on their designated roles instead of day to day management.
Would add this is the structure closer to the EGPW format.
While I understand the hesitation, I do not see any concrete solutions for the current situation outside of doing the same again.
Zoe Clelland:
writing to confirm I was incorrect about the conference budget - the net budgeted cost to the Party is true for 2026 but was not the case back in 2025 - my error in interpretation entirely, in thinking this applied in both years, for which, my apologies.
The rest of my comments and opposition to the change proposed from 2 co-chairs to 8 additional roles stands.
Astri Kvassnes:
Noting I'm currently a member of Executive, like Mariusz, in my role as Policy Committee Coco.
I'm writing to oppose this motion.
As we are all aware, a system is easier to change if it is not forced. Lets add it on to a process already in motion, the strategy for 2027-2032 is being written now.
I do agree that there are major improvements possible in Executive and in the party works in general. I'm puzzled why you want to remove the votes of the additional National Committees (and your motions is not written in a way that this change is highlighted), and add an eight-person team to line manage staff. That sounds like a nightmare in practice.
As a branch, it would be more appropriate if the branch brought the issue (not the motion) of improving the working of Executive to Council and asked Council to bring an improvement plan for Executive as a part of the new strategy that the party is approving next spring.
It is wholly appropriate to make a new system for organising effectively everything, once the membership more than triples. Which it has since 2018 when the constitution was written.
Thanks
Mariusz Cebulski:
Not really see what is forced about proposing a motion to my own branch AGM for discussion and vote, would more describe it as democracy in action.
Yes the motion removes votes from national committees so they can focus on their own important goals while offloading staff, risk management and governance to Executive members.
I do not see how having more people with full access to party data and staff is a nightmare, since the English Green party has eight executive members, SNP has 16 and even a smallest charity usually has way more than two.
The fact that a idealistic member who was co-chair resigned after a few months from the role, frustrated with the job shows that having this responsibility on two people is more aptly named a 'nightmare'.
Evelyn Weston:
An overhaul of executive is long overdue. It was setup to meet a delivery and decision-making capability not met by the existing structure. Its suitability has not gone through any assessment of its effectiveness but as someone who has been across a number of committees and served on exec as a committee coco, there is clearly issues.
Due to the nature of the work in the party, there are a number of areas of information and decision-making that is required to sit at a secret classification level only available to the cochairs and not the exec members who serve as committee cocos.
From a transparency and democratic process this creates a concern as only two people (if both positions are filled) have access to this.
This also creates a significant workload problem for the cochairs roles due to the breadth of work. It may seem counter-intuitive to increase the number of roles to deal with volunteer burnout but I believe by reducing individual burden on a single role, we can attract more participation.
While this proposal does reduce the role of the committee cocos in exec, this proposal does not reduce democratic representation. The increase of the exec members who have full access to secret information improves the democratic representation of the party.
This will also reduce the burden of the committee coco roles and refocus their responsibilities to their committee work improving the functioning of our committees.